Whom the gods would destroy, they first make defend Section 13. Unlike Ezra Levant and I, who are famously "against human rights", Warren Kinsella is a crusader for the rights of minorities and the vulnerable and a champion of progressive values. That's why he lurks in website comment sections deriding young ladies as butt-ugly with a Fred Flintstone neck, and why he went to such sterling efforts to expose the identity of a reader who sent him an unexceptional private e-mail from a government office (Warren has no letters page, as this site does, or comments section. Nor does he link to the bloggers he mocks. In fact, he doesn't seem to quite get this whole Internet thing.) Rounding out a somewhat overwrought weekend, he has now quit The National Post.
A lot of this would be funny, if low-level government employees weren't threatened with the loss of their jobs. The gentleman from the Privy Council Office has, as I understand it, been "reprimanded". He did not sign himself as a representative of the PCO or the Prime Minister or the Governnment of Canada. That makes the case a little different from Khurrum Awan's letter to Jason Kenney, in which Mr Awan signed himself as representing the Ontario Superior Court. But Warren saw his opportunity and took it: the "Government of Canada" says "who gives a s**t" about white supremacists.
No. A minor employee of the Government of Canada, speaking in a personal capacity, says "who gives a s**t" about men's room graffiti. Which, of course, is an entirely normal reaction. Just because Warren has deluded himself that his somewhat specialized hobby of toilet photography is serving a vital national-security function is no reason for the RCMP, CSIS and Lord Strathcona's Horse to be dispatched to the stall in question.
At the truck-stop on the Vermont/Quebec border, the men's room wall often bears shockingly intemperate observations on Yank warmongers and Canuck wimps, with related speculations on the size of their respective penises. I have never felt the urge to photograph them, and then publish them, and then demand that Bush and Condi drop everything and convene a conference on the crisis in US-Canadian relations. It's men's room graffiti.
And, if Warren protests that we should give a s**t, then why doesn't he also give a s**t about that Internet post tarring Senator Cools as a "c**t" and a "n**ger". Doesn't that shock him just as much as bit of bathroom graffiti? Or is hate speech okay when it's Lucy Warman doing it? (Incidentally, say what you like about Lucy but at least he adopts a nom-de-plume when he goes a-lurking in the comments sections.)
I hope the PCO guy's "reprimand" will be the end of it. The desperation of Warren's toilet argument tells you how hard it is to make a principled case for Section 13. The reality is there is no political downside to supporting Keith Martin's motion: Section 13 was poorly drafted, and corruptly administered in practice.
